Visiting the green festival is a truly fulfilling experience, except when it isn’t.
I’ll admit it: after eight years straight, I recognize myself to be a Green Fest junkie. Economy be damned, the masses are pouring into the gates of the Green Festival, destined for wisdom and business opportunities and green smoothies. And I can’t resist jumping in with them.
So there I am, I was fueling up with Clif Bar samples, Pouring over the schedule, dodging the sense of overwhelm: there’s just too much to experience in one day. I start by taking it slow. I check out the aquaponics: fish feeding gardens feeding us. I check out the new and improved version of the t.p.-saving bidet (next year, I swear), and the ever-expanding representation of Livity hats.
I connect with old friends and inquire about sustainable kitsch, like paper made from Sri Lankan elephant poo. I discuss new sites and applications that will help us barter better. I communicate in 140 characters or less, flinging #’s and @’s at will, tweeting while facing a Green Festival monitor filled with Green Festival tweets. I pause to share the requisite Sambazon Acai icee with a friend who’s been globetrotting (why don’t I have a house in Lebanon?). While people rush to hear Gavin Newsom (The Mayor’s here! The Mayor’s here!) I sink into a presentation from Mallika Chopra speaking of her site Intent.com, which is an exciting take at using the web to help make dreams come true.
A couple of hours in, I’m flying high, uplifted, smushed happily into the world of green. I’m tweeting, high five-ing, doing the GF-jig. Yes I even buy a hemp shirt. Oh great Green Festival.
But then it begins to slip. I feel information overload mixed with caffeine-driven nausea, followed by a ‘what the hell difference do organic sheets and goji berries make’ disorientation. Then there’s the twitch, the same twitch I used to get around 3am at the craps table at the Barbary Coast, stacks waning, tide turning, gin suddenly sour and I’ve got the desire to turn and run, to race down Brannan Street until there’s no chance I’ll be tempted into lying down and getting Breema’d or hitting up another shot of Fair Trade anything or smelling another variation on geranium. And that none of it matters.
I have officially lost my bearings. Just like in Vegas, the exits seem all turned around, I’m inevitably far from any door, there’s thirty more things I’m tempted to learn more about in any direction, and it’s nearly impossible I’ll get to a place safely out of hemp’s way.
I breathe. Then I remember I forgot to have lunch. I have that lunch. Yes, the combination of some form of actual nutrients helps a lot.
As I sit down it occurs to me that for all of it’s benefits, the problem with Green Festival is this: while admirably supporting a paradigm of green living and commerce, the format and timing of it parallels the world of 500 channels and 500 brands of crackers that it’s trying to get away from. The result is too many choices of where to put my energy. I sit down at the speakers and have to get up, feeling like I might be missing something. We talk to each other with one eyeball wandering the floor.
While it’s true that the Green Festival inspires me and in a way represents a rising green economy, the fact that I always seem dissatisfied upon departure may be the best statement of support for Global Exchange co-founder Kevin Danaher’s vision: to have a green festival that runs all the time in one place.
I begin to muster enough energy to make my way to the door and get the hell out of there, and into the San Francisco night. I vow never ever to return, until next year.
